Idaho
As Idaho budget debate rages, JFAC co-chair says ‘budget setting is in limbo’ – Idaho Capital Sun
As legislative leaders continue to debate voting procedures and rules, the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee has not yet taken the traditional step of voting on a revenue target that the entire state budget is based around.
The revenue target is important because the Idaho Constitution requires the Idaho Legislature to pass a balanced budget where expenses do not exceed revenues.
The revenue target is intended to show the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, other legislators and the public how much money is available to spend on budget requests.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, faces other challenges aside from the lack of a revenue target. JFAC’s co-chairs, Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, and Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, are implementing a series of significant changes to the budget process this year, including breaking the budgets up into different parts and altering the committee’s daily public hearing procedures.
On Friday, 12 of JFAC’s 20 members rebelled against the new procedures to break up the budgets in different ways and went around Grow and Horman to write and craft their own standalone budgets that are in direct competition with Grow and Horman’s plans for separate maintenance of current operations budgets.
When asked if JFAC can continue setting budgets without knowing how much revenue is available to spend, Horman said she isn’t sure.
“I would say budget setting is in limbo,” Horman said in a telephone interview late Tuesday afternoon.
Why does the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee need a revenue target?
Normally, JFAC sets a revenue target and makes statewide budget decisions before it begins setting state budgets.
This year JFAC accepted a revenue report from the Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee on Jan. 12, but has not yet acted on that report by setting a revenue target, Horman said.
“Given some of the other issues we’ve been dealing with in JFAC, that was moved,” Horman said. “It was less of a priority than resolving some of the other problems we are dealing with.”
Although JFAC has not yet set a revenue target, JFAC passed 10 omnibus budget bills on Jan. 16 that spend more than $5.1 billion in general fund money.
Since then, on Friday, JFAC also passed 14 additional state agency budgets that include millions more in general fund spending. The Department of Agriculture budget, for example, includes more than $15 million in general fund spending for fiscal year 2025.
Those new budgets JFAC passed Friday are in direct competition with the 10 omnibus budgets JFAC passed Jan. 16.
Idaho budget showdown could intensify Wednesday at the Idaho State Capitol
The situation with competing budgets could force the full Idaho House of Representatives and Idaho Senate to pick one side or the other starting as soon as Wednesday. Nine of the 10 omnibus budgets are near the top of Wednesday’s floor agendas – five in the Idaho Senate and four in the Idaho House.
The earlier omnibus budgets passed Jan. 16 lump about 100 state agencies all together between new bare-bones budgets that Grow and Horman said do not include any new spending requests and are designed to simply keep the lights on for state agencies.
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By contrast, the 14 state agencies budgets JFAC passed Friday separate the agencies out from each other, but are intended to be full standalone maintenance budgets that include fuller raises for state employees, replacement items for state agencies and more, supporters of those budgets have said.
Because the Jan. 16 and the Feb. 2 budgets are in competition, both cannot pass, and legislators will need to make a choice at some point.
“That’s where we are at an impasse right now,” Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, said in an interview Tuesday. “If that is the case, then we have to vote those down or our budgets (from Friday) could be ruled out of order.”
If the Jan. 16 omnibus budgets pass, the Feb. 2 standalone budgets could be thrown out. If that’s the case, JFAC may need to again return to those 14 budgets to consider state employee raises, new spending requests and replacement items that were not in the Jan. 16 budgets.
But if the Jan. 16 omnibus budgets fail, then those budgets will be thrown out.
How much revenue is going to be available for Idaho budgets?
The Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment’s Committee’s report recommends that a little less than $5.6 billion in revenue be available for budgeting in fiscal year 2025.
Horman said JFAC members were supposed to vote on a revenue target earlier in the year, but delayed action while legislative leaders debate JFAC’s rules and voting procedures.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little says JFAC’s budget changes could have unintended consequences
Depending on what happens in the ongoing budget showdown, JFAC may have already spent $5.1 billion against a revenue recommendation of a little less than $5.6 billion. Meanwhile, JFAC hasn’t yet considered new spending for the state’s largest budgets, the public schools budgets and the Medicaid budget.
Horman said the Idaho Legislature is not at risk of overspending its revenue.
“But the maintenance budgets (from Jan. 16) are well under those revenue targets,” Horman said. “As soon as House and Senate leadership make some decisions about JFAC operations and we get a resolution on the maintenance budgets, we will immediately put that on the agenda for consideration of what we have in the report from the Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee.”
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Idaho
University of Idaho professor awarded $10M after TikTok tarot influencer claimed she ‘ordered’ quadruple murders
A University of Idaho professor won a $10 million judgment after a tarot TikTok influencer publicly pushed false claims that she was behind the savage quadruple slayings of four college students.
A Boise jury in US District Court ordered fortune-telling Texas TikToker Ashley Guillard on Friday to pay $10 million after concluding she falsely accused professor Rebecca Scofield of having a secret romance with one of the four victims and orchestrating their killings, the Idaho Statesman reported.
Following the verdict, Scofield thanked the jury and said she hopes the case sends a clear warning that making “false statements online have consequences in the real world.”
“The murders of the four students on November 13, 2022, were the darkest chapter in our university’s history,” Scofield told Fox News.
“Today’s decision shows that respect and care should always be granted to victims during these tragedies. I am hopeful that this difficult chapter in my life is over, and I can return to a more normal life with my family and the wonderful Moscow community.”
Scofield, the university’s history department chair, filed the lawsuit in December 2022 — just weeks after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were brutally stabbed to death at an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.
Guillard began uploading videos to her more than 100,000 TikTok followers in late November 2022, accusing Scofield of a secret relationship with one of the students and claiming she had “ordered” the killings, garnering millions of views across the social media platform.
The complaint states that Scofield had never met the victims and was out of state when the murders occurred.
Even after being served with cease-and-desist letters and after police publicly confirmed Scofield had no connection to the murders, the Houston-based tarot reader continued posting videos, the history professor’s legal team argued.
Guillard doubled down on her accusations against Scofield after being sued, posting a defiant video saying, “I am not stopping,” and challenging why Scofield needed three lawyers to sue her “if she’s so innocent.”
The professor’s legal team argued the defamatory accusations painted her as a criminal and accused her of professional misconduct that could derail her career.
Bryan Kohberger, then studying criminology at Washington State University, pleaded guilty in July 2025 to the quadruple murders in a deal that took the death penalty off the table. He is currently serving four consecutive life sentences in Idaho.
In June 2024, Chief US Magistrate Judge Raymond Patricco found Guillard’s statements legally defamatory, leaving damages to be decided by a jury.
During the damages trial, Scofield described the anguish of seeing her name tied to the murders online, the Idaho Statesman reported.
However, Guillard, acting as her own attorney, insisted her comments were simply beliefs based on tarot card readings.
She claimed to have psychic powers and testified that she relied on tarot cards to try to solve the shocking homicides that shook the rural college town and sparked global attention.
It took jurors less than two hours to return their verdict, the outlet reported.
The jury awarded Scofield $7.5 million in punitive damages in addition to $2.5 million in compensatory damages.
With Post wires
BOISE, Idaho — AAA is warning Idaho gas consumers that pump prices will likely rise as the conflict in Iran disrupts oil and gas supply chains worldwide.
The ongoing turmoil in the Middle East will likely push the price for a gallon of regular gasoline past the $3 mark over the coming days.
“On one hand, the crude oil market had time to account for some financial risk in the Middle East as forces mobilized, but a supply shortage somewhere affects the global picture,” says AAA Idaho public affairs director Matthew Conde. “If tankers can’t move products through the region, there could be ripple effects.”
On Monday, March 2, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $2.97, reports AAA, which is 12 cents more expensive than it was a month ago but 20 cents less than this time last year.
State / Price: 1 gallon of regular gasoline
- Washington / $4.37
- Oregon / $3.92
- Nevada / $3.70
- Idaho / $2.97
- Colorado / $2.89
- Montana / $2.82
- Utah / $2.74
- Wyoming / $2.73
In terms of the most expensive fuel in the nation, Idaho currently ranks #14. However, buying a gallon of regular gas in neighboring states such as Oregon and Washington could cost a whole dollar more. In contrast, gas prices in Utah, Montana, and Wyoming are anywhere between 15 to 24 cents cheaper than fuel in the Gem State.
The results are in for the Idaho Lottery’s draw games on Sunday, March 1, 2026.
Here’s a look at winning numbers for each game on March 1.
Winning Pick 3 numbers from March 1 drawing
Day: 7-2-3
Night: 2-7-6
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 4 numbers from March 1 drawing
Day: 4-7-9-3
Night: 8-7-7-3
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Idaho Cash numbers from March 1 drawing
03-06-07-33-41
Check Idaho Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from March 1 drawing
10-11-12-35-56, Bonus: 04
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Idaho Lottery drawings held ?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 3: 1:59 p.m. (Day) and 7:59 p.m. (Night) MT daily.
- Pick 4: 1:59 p.m. (Day) and 7:59 p.m. (Night) MT daily.
- Lucky For Life: 8:35 p.m. MT Monday and Thursday.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- 5 Star Draw: 8 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Idaho Cash: 8 p.m. MT daily.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a USA Today editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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